Snowy owl logo identifies Nunavut’s guardians of suicide prevention
Embrace Life Council – Isaksimagit Inuusirmi Katujjigaatgiit says new logo will be on mugs, bags and pop sockets
Tooma Laisa, Embrace Life Council’s programs manager, holds a bag featuring the organization’s logo used to identify people who are trained in suicide prevention. (Photo by David Lochead)
A Nunavut organization is debuting new promotional items that features a logo designed to identify people trained in suicide prevention.
Embrace Life Council — Isaksimagit Inuusirmi Katujjigaatgiit staff, along with caregivers and people who have completed suicide prevention training with the council, will be easy to identify through a snowy owl logo. These people are considered by the organization to be “guardians of the community.”
The organization unveiled the new logo, which is now in use, on March 13. It can be found emblazoned on objects such as bags, mugs and the gripper attachments for holding onto cellphones.
Council staff chose the creature because it represents the land and symbolizes attributes such as peace, health and leadership, said Opal McInnis, president of the council.
“To me, it kind of symbolizes someone that that cares, someone that’s watching, that notices that you matter. So, to me, it makes sense for it to be a central piece to the imagery,” McInnis said.
The logo was designed with the help of Becky Kilabuk, an Iqaluit-based artist who is a co-founder and former president of the council.
It’s meant to convey the message that “It’s OK to talk to me,” “I am here for you,” and “You are safe with me.”
McInnis said the idea for the designated symbol came from crisis response teams throughout the territory wanting to be more identifiable.
The organization’s goal, according to McInnis, is to get more people comfortable talking about mental wellness and reduce barriers to access health services.
Embrace Life offers four workshops that qualify to be deemed a safe person by the organization. Those workshops are: Inuusiq Pimmariujuq (Life Matters), Reach Out, ASIST: Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training, and Talking to Children About Suicide.
They are all offered free of charge.
It’s nice and all with the new logo, but I would like to know what is going on with one of the highest suicide rates in the world and it’s not getting any better, majority of suicides in Nunavut are young men too, is there anything specific happening to support our young men?
It just seems double standards all the time.
Too much drugs cigarettes booze and Facebook drama thats what’s messing up these young people
And why are these things being used to mess up our young people, what is the reason behind this?
i never seen a people more into facebook than up here. that and phones. its like children playing.
It’s like that all over.. we are living a social experiment
If it’s on Facebook, it must be real.😂
@Colin – the logo is done, now the council and move onto more actionable items like helping address issues surrounding suicide in communities. Like all the environmental factors that relate to suicide and all…
MAID the assisted end of life program pushed thru in parliament is getting deserved bad press. Globalist and their agenda at its finest or worst which ever one prefers to call it.
Clearly you have not had a mother lie in a hospital bed for 16 years and go unconscious for the last seven.
“gLoBaLiStS aNdThEiR aGeNdA aT iTs FiNeSt”
The state of the NN comments sections, how sad it has become
If you believe what the mainstream press is publishing today you are living in a dark age not that much different than the original dark age of the 5th to10th century. Diversify your sources of info, much of it’s free on the www.
It takes a community to work on issues, and we shouldn’t rely solely on the Embrace Life Council.
Every community has a variety of professionals, such as a Recreation Director/Coordinator, Mental Health Nurse, Community Justice Outreach Worker, Wellness Coordinator, and Community Counselors, who can work together to tackle issues in their community. They can receive support and training from ELC to make a difference and create healthy changes.
If your community lacks any of these positions, it’s important to voice your concern to the appropriate person. However, social media platforms like Facebook are not effective in solving problems and may even create more drama.
I have never seen a place with so much pointless swag.
And why is this council around if we can’t rely on them? I would like to rely on our GN and NTI also, they have hundreds of millions of dollars, what are they doing to combat this serious epidemic of suicide that has been going on in our territory for years and it’s not getting any better.
It’s no wonder the federal government does not use Nunavut’s statistics for suicide when they average out their numbers as a whole country. It would really bump up the numbers and Canada would not look very good.